Reading alot of posts discussing "A" nursing students vs "C" nursing students

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I still want to voice my opinion. Lately, I've been reading alot of post discussing "A" nursing students verses "C" nursing students. It breaks my heart that there are students that are so hung up on grades that they rather want an "A" nurse taking care of them over a "C" nurse. Come on now ! When was the last time a patient asked you what your GPA was ? When was the last time as a patient yourself you asked your nurse what her GPA was ? Nursing school is stressful enough and while I strive everyday to make A's on exams I don't. I started out with A's and now I'm hanging around with high C's. Don't me wrong, I take NS and my grades very seriously... the only difference is that I don't let my grades whether A's or C's determine what kind of nurse I'll be. I graduate in a few weeks and I'm not sure if I'll still have my above 3.0 average, but I tell you one thing I'm still going to hold my head up high and take care of patients to the best of my ability . I'll still be a nurse and no less of a nurse then my classmates that got A's through nursing school. These are nursing exams, the real test starts when you start working and providing competent care to patients. So I'm saying enough is enough ! To you students who are A students I want to give you a big :clphnds: I know you deserve your A and worked hard for it. For you students who are " C " students I want to give you a big :clphnds: as well and you also worked hard for you grade as well. No one goes into nursing school wanting to make C's all the time, however it happens. I haven't met one student that said" I'm studying my butt off for that C. Students now days are so caught up in grades instead of the true meaning of nursing. :crying2:When my pt. comes in with cardiac arrest and is in alot of pain he won't care what grades I got, he cares about my compassionate and me providing good quality care. Come on A and C students can't we all get back to what nursing really is about.A nurse is a nurse . Once you pass that nclex you are a nurse:nurse:

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest. I'm done you all can yell at me now. :sofahider

Specializes in critical care, PACU.

and the stigma that annoys me is that if you have straight A's you must not be street smart. thats a crappy argument because nursing tests test you on critical thinking (cough cough street smarts cough cough)

it gets me all fired up when I keep hearing people say that 4.00s are frantically gripping to their textbooks as the hospital goes up in flames and their patient drowns in their own blood

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The more I hear about nursing school and test questions, the more grateful I am that I have an English degree. Hopefully it will serve me as well in nursing school as it has in the prerequisites. I'm proud of my evil, snobby As.

Good bless,be proud of your As,what this world would be without literature,arts and written and spoken language,I'm sure your creativity will pay of in your nursing career.My father always says that intelligent and educated person will always find the solution and his place in life.

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Specializes in Obstetrics, M/S, Family medicine.
We are just as good as A students,and sometimes if not for the majority of the time we have what is called "street smarts" and run a circles around A students in clinicals,and then if we try hard enough we even get A+;)

Beach Butterfly, are you not noticing that you have allowed yourself to become the exact same person as the ones that say "A students are better?"

C students do not run circles around A students.

This is a lot of nonsense of people obsessed with saying THEY are going to be a better nurse. It comes down to not worrying yourself with things that will not matter once you graduate. What you SHOULD be doing instead of worrying so much about your grades is trying to learn.

Refocus yourself and be happy with who you are.....if you are not happy with that, figure out what you want to change, and change it.

Good luck. :twocents:

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I'm sorry, but I am one of those patients that would love to know that my nurse was top of the class. I prefer an overacheiver caring for me, rather than someone who did average. Patients deserve the best, and I am glad to see that employers do look at your grades so that the patients are getting what they need and are paying for.

I am also a student nurse with a 4.2 GPA and I am in with a lot of those C students and let me tell you, there may be a few of them that really are working very hard to get those C's and I commend them, but they are truly struggling, and they are going to continue to struggle in the workplace as well. Also, the majority of those getting C's in my own program, are not the ones working hard for it. They would rather party after class, party all weekend, and come to class and clinicals tired, hungover, and yes some even still somewhat under the influence. Some miss clinicals for whatever reason. I missed both of my grandparents funerals, nearly every holiday function, school function for my children, and the years 2-5 of the last child I will ever have. I missed a lot of sleep to study, worked full time and had not one day off for three years. I did it because I wanted this so badly. I am not complaining about what I gave up, but it irks me to no end to hear the complaints of the mediocre, and lazy. I am NOT looking forward to working with C nurses in the workplace either.

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I don't know where I fall. I have made As, Bs, and Cs, in school. I've made all kinds of grades.

I wish more C students would come in and stand up for themselves. Honestly, everyone that has come into this thread has claimed to be a staright A or B student. there is no shame in admitting that you are a C student. I know I've made Cs and I'm proud of myself.

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I'm sorry, but I am one of those patients that would love to know that my nurse was top of the class. I prefer an overacheiver caring for me, rather than someone who did average. Patients deserve the best, and I am glad to see that employers do look at your grades so that the patients are getting what they need and are paying for.

I am also a student nurse with a 4.2 GPA and I am in with a lot of those C students and let me tell you, there may be a few of them that really are working very hard to get those C's and I commend them, but they are truly struggling, and they are going to continue to struggle in the workplace as well. Also, the majority of those getting C's in my own program, are not the ones working hard for it. They would rather party after class, party all weekend, and come to class and clinicals tired, hungover, and yes some even still somewhat under the influence. Some miss clinicals for whatever reason. I missed both of my grandparents funerals, nearly every holiday function, school function for my children, and the years 2-5 of the last child I will ever have. I missed a lot of sleep to study, worked full time and had not one day off for three years. I did it because I wanted this so badly. I am not complaining about what I gave up, but it irks me to no end to hear the complaints of the mediocre, and lazy. I am NOT looking forward to working with C nurses in the workplace either.

Wow. You are a very divisive person. You aren't looking forward to working with C nurses? Are you serious? I can't believe some of the comments that are coming from the posters around here. That is just pure discrimination at its finest. There is no way for you to know who is an A or C nurse unless you have access to their transcripts; that nurse that you don't think is going a good job could very well be an A/B student. You sound very self centered and narcisstic. You have no tolerance for ppl who are nothing like yourself and that is not a good characteristic to have if you are in a field to help ppl

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I'm sorry, but I am one of those patients that would love to know that my nurse was top of the class. I prefer an overacheiver caring for me, rather than someone who did average. Patients deserve the best, and I am glad to see that employers do look at your grades so that the patients are getting what they need and are paying for.

I am also a student nurse with a 4.2 GPA and I am in with a lot of those C students and let me tell you, there may be a few of them that really are working very hard to get those C's and I commend them, but they are truly struggling, and they are going to continue to struggle in the workplace as well. Also, the majority of those getting C's in my own program, are not the ones working hard for it. They would rather party after class, party all weekend, and come to class and clinicals tired, hungover, and yes some even still somewhat under the influence. Some miss clinicals for whatever reason. I missed both of my grandparents funerals, nearly every holiday function, school function for my children, and the years 2-5 of the last child I will ever have. I missed a lot of sleep to study, worked full time and had not one day off for three years. I did it because I wanted this so badly. I am not complaining about what I gave up, but it irks me to no end to hear the complaints of the mediocre, and lazy. I am NOT looking forward to working with C nurses in the workplace either.

I'm not looking forward to work with arrogant people,seriously.Strange class you had hmmmm since you claim to have such outstanding grades,99%of my class had no time to party.

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Wow. You are a very divisive person. You aren't looking forward to working with C nurses? Are you serious? I can't believe some of the comments that are coming from the posters around here. That is just pure discrimination at its finest. There is no way for you to know who is an A or C nurse unless you have access to their transcripts; that nurse that you don't think is going a good job could very well be an A/B student. You sound very self centered and narcisstic. You have no tolerance for ppl who are nothing like yourself and that is not a good characteristic to have if you are in a field to help ppl

What he missed both of his grandparents funeral to have good grades?????

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Shouldn't we all be a little divisive in this profession? We have all worked with those that are really only in it for the pay. We have all worked with those that don't give 100% every day. We have all worked short because of those that just didn't feel like coming in that day.

Don't the patients deserve a little better than that?

And no self centered does not describe me at all. In fact, I am quite selfless. Part of why I want to be a nurse. I believe a caring nurse gives of herself to care for her patient.

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Shouldn't we all be a little divisive in this profession? We have all worked with those that are really only in it for the pay. We have all worked with those that don't give 100% every day. We have all worked short because of those that just didn't feel like coming in that day.

Don't the patients deserve a little better than that?

And no self centered does not describe me at all. In fact, I am quite selfless. Part of why I want to be a nurse. I believe a caring nurse gives of herself to care for her patient.

I'm sorry but it is quite ironic when a person who claims to be selfless go ahead and misses both of his grandparents funeral home for the sake of excellent grades,even nursing school can accomodate to that.

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Specializes in Obstetrics, M/S, Family medicine.
Wow. You are a very divisive person. You aren't looking forward to working with C nurses? Are you serious? I can't believe some of the comments that are coming from the posters around here. That is just pure discrimination at its finest. There is no way for you to know who is an A or C nurse unless you have access to their transcripts; that nurse that you don't think is going a good job could very well be an A/B student. You sound very self centered and narcisstic. You have no tolerance for ppl who are nothing like yourself and that is not a good characteristic to have if you are in a field to help ppl

Before there are any more posts to this thread I think there should be some clarification......

there are students who scrape by with C's because they do not want to put the effort in and they know they will pass just the same with C's, THEN there are C students who work their butt off, but maybe don't test well, or study well.

These are TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE!

Those who TRY and those who do NOT try. You may not be able to "know who is an A or C nurse" if they are both go-getters who worked themselves to the bone during school, but there is no argument that a student who was lazy in school will probably continue to be lazy in work. These are the people that you need to watch out for.:o

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Specializes in med surg, geriatric, clinical, pool.
quite interestingly, we were very interested in a student's grades when we were hiring new grads. we asked for a transcript from them as part of their hiring process. it partly has to do with their study skills and partly with their attitude as well. the reason is because test taking and studying for those tests is a skill that we (and that is a collective we--don, nurse recruiter, manager of human resources and nurse managers) felt an unproven newly licensed rn ought to be able to demonstrate skill and success in. when that newly licensed rn walks onto a nursing unit he or she needs to have the smarts to pick up on what is going on and to think critically which means be able to solve problems. now, he or she may not be experienced enough to solve a lot of nursing problems right away, but we needed to be assured that they had the ability to learn and delivering good grades in school indicates that they had been in sync with what instructors demanded of them and successfully delivered it. they are going to need to do that exact same thing on a brand new job in their brand new role as rns. in addition, many facilities are going to give newly hired nurse employees a drug calculations test that they are going to have to pass at 100% accuracy or they are going to be terminated before they even get to the unit they were hire to work on. we also felt that thinking such as "a c still equals rn" in defense of a lower gpa was a display of negative attitude, negative thinking and evidence of the person accepting mediocre performance of themselves instead of striving to improve their performance and work toward giving the best performance that they could. if you are thinking in the negative then you are not seeking to be better than you are; you accept mediocrity. that's an unacceptable and pretty lame goal. it was a system wide policy that we wouldn't hire anyone who spewed those kinds of words from their lips because eventually you begin to hear things like, "i can't do that", "you're asking too much of me", "i was never trained to do that kind of stuff" or "nursing school was stressful enough. i don't need this same stress on the job too." find work at places that aren't intelligent enough to weed you out of a more elite group of go-getters and we'll be seeing you posting your gripes about problems with other difficult, lazy and "c still equals rn" co-workers on the general nursing discussion forum in the far off future.

i didn't even finish reading your response. i am a lousy test taker! so? it doesn't mean i don't know the info. sometimes its just how a question is asked that makes me second guess myself or even the person asking it can be so intimidating to me.

that is just something that takes time to get over. i wasn't given a whole lot of responsibility as a child and when i had to get out there and make decisions it showed.

some instructors act like they can't wait to make fun of students by puttting them on-the-line i call it. i used to freeze up, but i got over that.

please instructors i am asking that you give your students the time-of-day and treat them like human being....you will get more in return if you do!

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